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How to Run a Clean Election. What Mexico can teach the United States.
Opinionjournal.com ^ | 7/10/06

Posted on 07/10/2006 10:53:35 AM PDT by Valin

Mexico is likely to weather the controversy over its photo-finish election despite the protestors that losing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador brought into the streets on Saturday to claim the election had been stolen. Mexico's nonpartisan National Election Commission has built up a decade of credibility in running clean elections and international observers have certified the count as fair. Indeed, in its successful efforts to overcome its old reputation for corrupt vote-counting Mexico has a lot to teach the United States.

Mexico has developed an elaborate system of safeguards to prevent voter fraud. Absentee ballots, which are cast outside the view of election officials and represent the easiest way to commit fraud, are much harder to apply for than in the U.S. Voters must present a valid voter ID card with a photo and imbedded security codes. After they cast a ballot voters--just like those famously pictured in Iraq last year--also have a finger or thumb dipped in indelible purple ink to prevent them from voting again.

In the U.S. opponents of such anti-fraud measures as photo ID laws claim they will disenfranchise many voters and reduce voter turnout. But John Lott, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, notes that in the three presidential elections Mexico has conducted since the National Election Commission reformed the election laws "68% of eligible citizens have voted, compared to only 59% in the three elections prior to the rule changes." People are more likely to vote if they believe their ballot will be fairly counted.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Mexico; Politics/Elections
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1 posted on 07/10/2006 10:53:39 AM PDT by Valin
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To: Valin
Mexico is likely to weather the controversy over its photo-finish election despite the protestors that losing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Says who????? He has vowed not to concede until every vote is recounted. This fiasco is a long ways from being over. Some of the ID requirements are good ideas, but the Dems have stopped that. International observers??? Give me a break. What are they going to do?

2 posted on 07/10/2006 10:57:36 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: Valin

Oh yes. . .Mexico. . .show us how its done please. . .


3 posted on 07/10/2006 10:58:12 AM PDT by McBuff
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To: Valin

But just yesterday, they were saying George W. Bush stole the election in Mexico!


4 posted on 07/10/2006 10:59:18 AM PDT by TommyDale (Stop the Nifongery!)
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To: Valin

Actually..that is why so many mexicans cross the border illegally..they want to show Americans how to run clean elections..


5 posted on 07/10/2006 10:59:36 AM PDT by BerniesFriend
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To: Valin

Let the spin begin. Here's a related thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1662502/posts


6 posted on 07/10/2006 10:59:49 AM PDT by Egon (We are number one! All others are number two... or lower.)
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To: Valin
Absentee ballots, which are cast outside the view of election officials and represent the easiest way to commit fraud, are much harder to apply for than in the U.S. Voters must present a valid voter ID card with a photo and imbedded security codes. After they cast a ballot voters--just like those famously pictured in Iraq last year--also have a finger or thumb dipped in indelible purple ink to prevent them from voting again.

The Mexican Government (as well as the Dems) would howl with displeasure if any or all of these were instituted here.

7 posted on 07/10/2006 11:00:51 AM PDT by socal_parrot (I thought I was dancing until somebody stepped on my hands.)
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To: Valin

Where's the barf alert?


8 posted on 07/10/2006 11:00:59 AM PDT by caver (Yes, I did crawl out of a hole in the ground.)
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To: Valin
Hey WSJ,we could "learn" this from them, too...

Mexican Constitution's Solution to US Immigration Policy

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1612258/posts

9 posted on 07/10/2006 11:02:46 AM PDT by Rakkasan1 ((Illegal immigrants are just undocumented friends you haven't met yet!))
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To: caver

Because it doesn't deserve one.
Did you actually read the article?


10 posted on 07/10/2006 11:05:37 AM PDT by Valin (http://www.irey.com/)
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To: caver

Actually, I sorta like the part about requiring photo ids!
Bet the don't accept Matricula Consuelas, either!


11 posted on 07/10/2006 11:05:45 AM PDT by Little Ray (If you want to be a martyr, we want to martyr you.)
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To: Valin

In the continuation of the article it was noted that "a judge prevented Georgia's [new photo ID] law from being implemented." I don't know if it was purely coincidental, but when I was traveling along the Gulf Coast looking at hurricane damage and recovery, I met a Mexican [illegal] who was one of a number working as a painter for a Georgia construction company. His crew was working for this man near Mobile, Ala. If I understood him correctly he is being paid $3 or $4 per hour. I can imagine that the company in Georgia would not want any measures to improve identification if they are getting away with that kind of rip off.


12 posted on 07/10/2006 11:06:40 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: Valin

I like the idea. reminds me of Georgia's new law.


13 posted on 07/10/2006 11:06:59 AM PDT by Rakkasan1 ((Illegal immigrants are just undocumented friends you haven't met yet!))
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To: Rakkasan1

WE should follow their immigration policy as well.. it would sure eliminate a lot of problems here..


14 posted on 07/10/2006 11:07:58 AM PDT by JoanneSD
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To: Always Right

If Al Gore had insisted that every vote in Florida be recounted he would have been President. Instead he only asked that the votes in heavily Democratic counties be recounted. Democratic stupidity not to have imagined that miscounts might be more likely in Republican counties.


15 posted on 07/10/2006 11:09:13 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: BerniesFriend; Valin
The Mexicans insist on clean elections at home, and dirty ones here. Best of both worlds, actually. Good post, but this author really has his pollyanna glasses on. Whether or not this goes down peacefully is barely even money. Obrador is from the same factory that turned out Chavez/Castro/Lula/Bolivia/Peru/Allende/Che Guevara and every other Latino Left-Leaning Lunatic.

What's really laughable is calling the Calderon guy a conservative. He's conservative compared to Lenin ... maybe.

16 posted on 07/10/2006 11:11:00 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ( Vote Fraud: The Democrats' Secret Weapon .... Well, secret to the RNC, anyway.)
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To: gleeaikin
If Al Gore had insisted that every vote in Florida be recounted he would have been President.

I thought that this was thoroughly de-bunked...

17 posted on 07/10/2006 11:14:53 AM PDT by Onelifetogive (Freerepublic - The website where "Freepers" is not in the spell checker dictionary...)
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To: Kenny Bunk

What's really laughable is calling the Calderon guy a conservative

Bear in mind we are talking about Mexico here not Mississippi.


18 posted on 07/10/2006 11:15:40 AM PDT by Valin (http://www.irey.com/)
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To: gleeaikin
Instead he only asked that the votes in heavily Democratic counties be recounted. Democratic stupidity not to have imagined that miscounts might be more likely in Republican counties.

Wrong. Al was no dummy. Their plan was to manufacture more votes in the Democrat counties ... a technique the Democrats just demonstrated in Washington State. Remember they did catch a Democrat with a ballot machine .... in his car.

Also similar to Washington was the suppression of the military vote.

Same deal Gore's team pulled in PA, where all the Republicans except Bush did well. Why? Lot's of extra ballots with only the Democrat for President chadded out. If Santorum goes down, I'll have a laugh on him since he refused to talk about Fast Eddie Rendell's painfully obvious, but well-executed fraud.

19 posted on 07/10/2006 11:18:48 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ( Vote Fraud: The Democrats' Secret Weapon .... Well, secret to the RNC, anyway.)
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To: McBuff
Oh yes. . .Mexico. . .show us how its done please. . .

I think that it is dangerously arrogant to think that everything we do is superior to everything a nation like Mexico does.

Sometimes a nation like Mexico has had to institute reforms because the extreme level of corruption has made it impossible to function without addressing some problems. I'd rather we fixed our issues (like they have) before we allow the Dims to take us to third-world depths of corruption. Voter ID, clean voting lists and tighter control of absentee voting would be a good start.

20 posted on 07/10/2006 11:20:14 AM PDT by Onelifetogive (Freerepublic - The website where "Freepers" is not in the spell checker dictionary...)
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